The Starving Years (21 page)

Nelson was sorely tempted to add that Tim had such a hot dick he wouldn’t mind taking another taste…but he suspected that observation wouldn’t exactly ease Javier’s mind. Sure, Tim wore his heart on his sleeve—it was pretty cute. Refreshing, actually, since Nelson had seen enough hipster ennui to last a lifetime. But Tim was a big boy…in more ways than one. Nelson figured he could speak up for himself if he wasn’t happy with the status quo.

Chapter 19

While the netbook didn’t carry Tim’s full contingent of custom scripts and macros, it was loaded with the important ones. Like the algorithm that cracked passwords, and the script that could erase traces of its user’s activity by overwriting it with innocuous-looking text files.
 

Two windows bisected the tiny screen: Javier’s fake résumé and Canaan Products’ Warehouse Division directory. Tim had meant to skim the job fair résumés while his algorithms did their work searching for password protected information at Canaan—but so far, good old “Joe” had access to anything he cared to view, thanks to Javier marching up to that laptop, bold as you please, and copying the credentials Tim needed to create him.

Javier…whose voice left Tim breathless, and whose kisses made him shiver.

A bachelor’s in Literature from Universidad de Costa Rica—was that real? Or a bending of the truth, something similar to what he’d done with a few details tweaked? Or was it a complete fabrication?

Tim could imagine Javier as someone who’d studied literature. Although the book of poetry his résumé said he’d published…Tim couldn’t quite picture that.
 

A beep drew his attention to the remote window. His algorithm had swept away evidence of his plunder of Shipping and Receiving, and so he moved on to the manufacturing directory of Canaan’s mainframe. The strings of formulae and scientific-sounding jargon meant nothing to Tim, but would probably be an easy enough read for a guy with a carbon molecule tattooed on his hipbone. A tattoo that extended down into his…pubic hair. Tim adjusted himself and began the download of the database, pleased with the extra ten terabytes of memory he’d added to the netbook. It was heavy, and it drained the heck out of the battery. But it was worth it.

Despite the ample free space, the download and subsequent cleanup would take some time, thanks to the sorry speed of the wireless connection. Another warning flashed. Someone else had logged on the same IP host.

“Marianne, are you on the computer in there?”

“Just emailing my mom,” she called back.

Tim hit OK, and looked a bit closer at Javier’s fake résumé. Judging by the year on his bachelor’s, he’d be about thirty—a year older than Tim. If he’d finished college in four years. If they even started at eighteen in Costa Rica, like they did in the States. If the degree itself wasn’t bogus. If that was where he’d even come from.

It wasn’t necessary to look at Nelson’s résumé again. Even though Tim hadn’t seen it since he’d copped a guilty look back at his apartment, that information was stamped on his brain as if a hot iron had branded it there. And given Nelson’s appreciation of the crystal structure of boron, Tim was beginning to suspect that the listing of his education or technical skills hadn’t been exaggerated in hopes of scoring a callback.

Nelson’s analysis, then….

Another warning popped up. The other computer was sending its email. Tim hit OK and considered disabling the warnings, but of course he’d never do something so crazy on a wireless network with such basic encryption. He double-clicked on the analysis.

Yet another warning popped up. Marianne had opened another browser window. Tim sighed, and considered asking her to surf the web some other time. Maybe he could tell her it was slowing down the connection. But then she would be bored. She’d probably start to linger around behind him and try to figure out what he was doing, so it would be best to let her keep herself occupied in the office, despite the annoying warnings that would pop up every time she navigated to a new page.

Tim increased the font size of Human Resources’ analysis of Nelson Oliver, but found he needed to scroll too much to make heads or tails of the information at that size, though he did see the words
underemployed
and
lacks direction
. He decreased the font by a click, and it was nearly impossible to read.

Marianne opened another browser window. Tim dismissed the warning message. As soon as he started to figure out how the analysis was laid out, what with it being nearly impossible to read at such a small font size, another message popped up—this one letting him know that the Canaan manufacturing database was finished downloading.

His remote connection to Canaan took priority over his curiosity about Nelson, and he began sifting through Canaan’s system to see what other information was there for the taking. Squinting at the tiny netbook screen was maddening, though. Maybe he could borrow the monitor from the other office…the one Javier had declared was off-limits. Tim sighed. Maybe not.

Tim scrolled through the company’s backups, and said a silent “thank you” to the fellow IT tech who’d set up every user’s data to back up every night. He ranked each user by the amount of gigs they’d stored, then hacked his way into the backed up folders of the users who generated the most info. Sales. Marketing. Financials. He wasn’t sure what else would be useful, so he began downloading all the personal stuff. It would take a while, but it’d be better to sort through it once he was no longer connected. And then he dug a bit deeper.

Email—jackpot. Not just the email of a single user. The entire company’s email. It lived on their server, all of it, every message that hadn’t been erased—and even those might be resurrected from prior backups. Tim combed through folders until he found the email directory, which was protected by another layer of security beyond what “Joe” could access. (Finally. Tim was starting to wonder if he’d managed to put “Joe” in charge of the whole damn company.) He set a script to cracking the email directory passwords. There wasn’t much more the netbook could handle, but still, it seemed like he was wasting precious time if he just sat there and watched his macro try out passwords while the other information continued to download.

The script that was digging for locked files pulled up its report. Tim paused the email download and started grabbing the sensitive stuff, setting its landing folder to begin hacking into any locked files.

Maybe whatever it was they were looking for wasn’t on Canaan Products’ mainframe at all. Maybe corporate had nothing to do with it. Maybe it lived on the personal phones and PDAs of whoever was involved. Tim just wouldn’t know until he rolled up his sleeves and started digging. And the waiting—for the downloads to finish, for the macros to do their work—was making him crazy.

He supposed that running the text editor wouldn’t be too taxing on the netbook. It shouldn’t slow anything down. It was about as simple as a program could get.

He pulled down his last Voice of Reason update—dismissed the warning that told him he was downloading something from a new cloud, because yes, he knew—and re-read the last thing he’d written.

Bowery riot makes Broadway impassable from Bleecker to 4th. Phone lines down. Canaan Products recruitment fair in the Pamoda Building—coincidence?

Whatever was going on, it was no longer confined to the lower east side. Congestion and chaos had spread through uptown. Maybe farther, for all Tim knew. And then there was the traffic control that bordered on Marshall Law—what was that all about? He couldn’t post that. Too accusatory. But he could type:

Still no phone service? For shame, New York. Maybe the repair crews could get through if you cleared out the sawhorses and rolled up the spike strips.

Assuming there IS anything wrong with the phone lines.

Tim didn’t usually resort to using such a catty tone—but the sight of New York’s Finest showing civilians the business end of their batons had left an indelible stain on his brain. Too bad he didn’t have a photo of what he’d seen. A picture really was worth a thousand words, even in the age of Photoshop. Maybe Javier would be willing to be in charge of photos, at least while Tim was driving.

The thought of being in the trenches with Javier—shoulder to shoulder—distracted Tim momentarily from the scrolling macros working on the password hack. Now that he had a face to put with Javier’s name—heck, not only a face, but a body. And a kissing style. And the memory of him grabbing Nelson’s hair and forcing him to deep throat Tim’s cock. Now the thought of working with a partner (or two) seemed less like a pipe dream, and more like a real, actual possibility.

Not like Tim’s ex. He’d always said something about it being a “waste of time” if he ever found Tim working on the Voice of Reason. But his tone seemed edgy when he did—like the “waste of time” remark was just the story he was telling himself. Did he buy that story? Because even Tim, who was supposedly not particularly gifted at reading people, if Phil could be believed, suspected he was actually a little bit scared of the possible consequences of publishing the site.

Tim re-read his latest Voice of Reason entry and wondered if maybe he should make it read more neutral, but then he heard footsteps, and voices outside the trailer door—cigar time was over—and he hit
upload
.

The netbook screen went red, and a half dozen alert windows cascaded open.

In the adjacent office, an urgent electronic tone blared out like a bomb getting ready to detonate, just as the front door opened and Randy, Javier and Nelson filed into the trailer. Nelson and Randy looked toward the office. Javier, though, looked at Tim.

WARNING: YOU’VE GOT COMPANY

Tim swallowed, but his mouth had gone dry. He’d set that popup alarm with packet-sniffers on guard to make sure no one was monitoring the activity on his account. Shit. And here he was on a poorly-encrypted network, hacking into Canaan Products. And simultaneously updating Voice of Reason. Nothing like linking together every single subversive or illegal thing he was doing and serving it up to the FBI on a platter. Evidently the thrill of getting spectacularly laid had made his brain bypass the lobe where he kept his common sense—because, seriously, what the
fuck
had he been thinking?

Marianne emerged from the office and said, “Uh…Tim?”

Shut down. Shut down. Tim stabbed the netbook keys, and suddenly they were way too small, or his fingers were way too big, or…or….

His netbook started to bleat in time with the computer in the other room, both of them sirening like they were singing a duet.

“What happened?” Randy asked Marianne.

“I don’t know—I was just checking to see if the Voice of Reason had any news yet, and then….”

Javier was at Tim’s side, one arm around his waist. “Escape key?” he said quietly.

“No. Alt-F4.”

Javier calmly closed all the shrilling alerts, then stopped the file transfer. Tim felt as if he might pass out—until Javier ran his pinkie finger down the side of Tim’s hand, and Tim remembered how to breathe. “It’s fine,” Javier said. He shut down the netbook, unplugged it and tucked it under his arm. How anyone could possibly be that cool-headed, Tim had no idea.

“You were checking the Voice of Reason,” Nelson repeated thoughtfully.

“Nelson,” Javier said—not an order, not a blatant, direct order, anyway. But his tone said,
leave it.

“Yeah,” Randy said, “she’s gonna marry that guy someday.”

“Voice of Reason,” Nelson repeated. He was looking at Tim—right at Tim. And grinning. “V-o-R,” he spelled.

Randy added, “If he ever moves out of his mommy’s basement.”
 

Marianne made an exasperated groan. “I think I messed up the computer.”

Nelson slipped around her and into the adjacent office so quickly, he practically broke into a run.

“How did he figure…?” Tim said.

“Never mind.” Javier went after Nelson. He moved quickly—much more quickly than Tim, who suddenly felt like he was all oversized feet and bafflement.

There were only five of them there inside that trailer, Randy and Marianne; Nelson, Javier and Tim. But getting through the door to the office to see what was going on suddenly felt as tricky as driving through the riot outside the job fair.
 

Nelson was wiggling the mouse by the time Tim squeezed past Randy. “The screen’s all locked down and everything’s beeping,” he said playfully. “How’d that happen? My desktop never does this.”

Javier reached around him and jabbed some keys, and the alarm stopped chirping, leaving the room suddenly quiet. Except for breathing—hard, panicked breathing—which, Tim suddenly realized, was his.

Nelson glanced up from the monitor and caught Tim’s eye, and smiled that cocky, flirtatious smile of his, and said, “Don’t worry, Tim-Man. No harm, no foul.”

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

***

Yanking someone’s chain was one thing—but poor Tim looked like he was just about ready to keel over. And since Nelson did actually think Tim was a good guy (if slightly awkward), he decided to take pity on him. “C’mon, Marianne,” he said with a flourish of the first aid kit. “Time for another pedi.” He grabbed Randy on the way out of the office, and said, “Moral support.” Which would leave
those two
alone in the office to figure out what was going on with the website, Javier and Tim.

Or, should he say, Voice of Reason?

He wasn’t one hundred percent sure…but it only made sense. The piece of paper in his pocket—the one Javier had wanted to shred that featured a nice, juicy chat between “J” and “VoR,” the fact that they’d known each other only online before they’d met in person…and, of course, the way VoR was such a kinktastic bottom-boy in that chat, and Tim had shot like the Fourth of July when Nelson fingered him.

Probably best not to dwell on that. Marianne might get the idea Nelson had a bi-curious foot fetish if he popped a chubby while he was cleaning her up.

Even though he’d wrapped the wounds loosely before, the gauze was stuck to the abrasions with dried lymph. Nelson swabbed the stuck areas with antibiotic cream and let the lotion soften up the human glue before he peeled off the dressing, and even so, he could tell it hurt. “Have your parents heard anything more than we have?” he asked Marianne—both because he actually wondered, and because he was hoping to distract her from the blisters and abrasions.